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October 8, 2014

Here is the look book for my Fall & Winter 2014 jewelry collection. I feel incredibly proud of these images, the jewelry, the styling and all of the work and love talented team who I worked with put into this.

May 29, 2014

A little over a month overdue, here is the look book shot by Anja, modeled by Amber and styled by me for my Spring and Summer 2014 jewelry line. I wish I had more to write. I'm very pleased with our efforts.

February 21, 2014

Last summer I became acquainted with the talented Talia Migliaccio via Instagram. Talia was at the time based in Denver, making really cool psychedelic art and broached the idea of doing a collaboration with me. It took many busy months to bring the project to fruition, largely due to my own slow moving, but finally last October I was able to hand-deliver some pieces of jewelry to Talia at her new home in Olympia. She lives in a stunning space built into a forest hillside overlooking the Puget Sound which includes several charmingly crooked houses, beautiful old iron gates, two chicken coops and a greenhouse. I would have liked to stay for a long time, but this look book of photos shot there prove a more than adequate souvenir. I absolutely love the warm, natural mood of the images as well as the slight surreality brought out in the kaleidoscopic multiple exposures. I am calling this series, "Another Green World" because this winter has been bookended musically with lots of Brian Eno, and because those three words to me embody the sense of place, near-but-far, that I connect to when I look through it.

January 22, 2014

A few card games during a getaway last weekend made me ponder the artwork on the backs of card decks which I had previously summarily ignored. The deck we played with was the classic Bicycle Rider Back and a little research revealed an era when bicycle decks came in a number of styles. I really love the scrimscaw, Edward Gorian quality to these illustrations; the impeccable detailing on tiny canvasses. (Card images below, and more, here.)

December 22, 2013

Today, I sat for awhile trying to think of the last time that I felt motivated to write by something besides a complaint. It's embarrassing to say, but I don't recall – the further back I go in my personal history, at least where writing is concerned, the more pain I seem to find. Heartache thrown into letter-writing, self-medicating via diaries, lots of embarrassing poem sketches going back years, littered through the drafts folder of my email. So many feelings! There are two manically scrawled-on napkins in the exterior pocket of a handbag I sometimes carry: the first weak but clear piece of creative writing I felt motivated to do after years of quietness, of blogging. I was sitting at St. Mark's coffeehouse in Denver last winter, now nearly a year ago, when a thought arrived. I don't know how it is for others, but for me, creative thinking often feels like a disappearing act in reverse. Open the door, nothing is there. Close the door, wave a wand and say Abracadabra (or in my case, stare into space, stretch, go for a walk, do nothing.) Open the door, there's the idea. On this particular day, (maybe it was being in Denver,) my thoughts were unusually Kerouacian, and of course I had no notebook, not even a receipt to write on. (I felt out of place enough, anyways; no one told me that now St. Mark's is all graying telecommuters instead of the striped stocking goth kids I expected to see.) This year that handbag has been in steady rotation and when I clear it out to fill another, I take out those napkins and think of that moment – home, but not home, a little alienated from everyone I loved, Dave already en route to Portland. Cold air and goose shit all over the sidewalks. The strange homecoming sensation that causes one to feel possessive of everything that is familiar.

This morning, a text message whose words cut so clearly through the pretend-ness of digital communication: I miss you. I wished I could have seen you last weekend. I love you. The message came from a dearest, magical friend who always finds a way to say things like that when I most need to hear them. Reading those words tore me open a bit but also set a peaceful, loving tone for the day. The sincerity, the directness of those three sentences fills my heart amidst a long stretch of radio silence from many loved ones. (Not to take a passive-aggressive, accusatory tone with anyone reading this; these are just my honest thoughts.) Holidays bring up darker stuff for me. I'd like to be a tinsel and eggnog girl but honestly, I'm just a big grump. December in Portland leaves me feeling like the dried out, shriveled roses I see around town, soaked by winter rains. (Santa, I want a SAD lamp.)

This afternoon, punctuated by lots of rain and cold and errands, I stumbled into a secondhand shop and found a party dress that gives me some small degree of excitement for holiday parties slated over the next few weeks. Allover pink fringe, a little loose but perfect for dancing. Dancing. The other thing that slipped away from me four years ago when I relocated to Portland. Perhaps as a defense mechanism to everything in my life changing, I allowed aspects of myself migrate inwards. Perhaps this lucky dress will bring back the dance mojo.

Dave told me something yesterday that he read in a meditation guide: begin where you are. The perfect complement to advice given to me by his sister Mary a year ago: meet other people where they are. Sometimes it is impossible to do both. Sometimes, wonderfully, it is possible. Here's hoping that in the new year, it is always possible.

December 8, 2013

Unseasonably cold weather and sunshine seems to come through Portland for a stretch every December causing it to feel (wonderfully) like a Colorado winter. During this stretch of time both this year and last I have felt a compulsion to leave the house every day, even if the weather didn't break a high of 32°. I'm beginning work on a new series of jewelry designs for spring 2014, trying to stay inspired and feeling something opening up inside of me.

Maybe the strange fuzzy sensation I'm having is a kind of nostalgia – the arid weather has me missing faraway friends even more than the holidays do. I've been listening to a lot of music that college friends were partial to, getting really into some things I never gave a fair shake. I wonder whether other people associate music with friends or circumstances in the same ways that I do or if the nature of associations is something like a fingerprint, specific and individual.

A lot of my time lately has been spent ruminating about connection and what it means... evaluating past relationships and present ones, feeling grateful that I've made many wonderful connections in the relatively short time I've been alive. I've been reflecting on lost connections a lot, too. I don't yet know how to express my feelings in that realm. I have a particular friend that I'm struggling to reconnect with. Most of the struggle is even knowing if they want to be my friend anymore... and anyways, the whole thing feels so convoluted and makes me so, so sad.

This weekend I taught myself how to enamel on copper. I am trying to figure out how to make abstract enamel pieces with color schemes that work in with the stones I've already bought for spring. The "figuring out" part isn't really how to make them, it's which colors to combine or not combine. My test pieces so far look pretty cool and the whole process feels sort of like painting with sand but as of day three I still feel like I'm all thumbs and really, I might be the only person who is into abstract enamel jewelry. (But let's hope not.)

Another thing I've really tried to focus on lately is putting my energy into whatever I want to make (or do,) not what I imagine might be commercially viable or popular. (Not to say that I have actively worked in the other way until now, just a running challenge to myself.) I think my spring line is going to be weird and maybe everyone will hate it but I am ready to let go of caring what other people think... I really am (I think.) I wanted to make note here of a running list I'm keeping of favorite things and inspirations for Spring:

November 25, 2013

This quote was passed on by a friend who read it in a Margaret Atwood short story, "Lives of the Poets," while camping with some friends.

"Marika was a peach-cheeked blonde, about twenty-two or twenty-three, anyway no more than five or six years younger than Julia. Although her name suggested the exotic, a Hungarian perhaps, her accent was flat Ontario and her last name was Hunt. Either a fanciful mother or a name-changing father, or perhaps Marika had adopted the name herself."

Apparently, (I haven't read it) this Marika has an affair with the protagonist's husband who spends much of the short story loathing Marika for pretending to be so fancy and of course, for having that affair. I'm amused and strangely excited that a character named Marika exists anywhere (besides the song "Marieke,") and I think Atwood's description (minus the blondness) could pass as an apt description of me, and perhaps all other North Americans daughters named Marika.

(Looking at this after posting, and the page this is posted on, it is disconcerting to see "Marika"/"Marieke" everywhere. One of those moments a word becomes unreal through repetition.)

Update: more Marika-related news! My newest music obsession: Marika Hackman, a 21 year old British singer (and former Burberry model) with a Sibylle Baier meets Beach House sort of style.

September 17, 2013

Lest it seems like I have forgotten I had a blog, here I come again to talk about some more jewelry stuff (I promise a Marika-in-real-life style post soon, but this had to come first because frankly, it's the most interesting thing I've been working on and I am quite excited to finally share it!)

Effusive "I'd-like-to-thank-the-Academy"-style appreciation goes out to my friend Anja who photographed and helped manage so many details -big and small- for this project. I feel so lucky to know someone as easygoing, smart, practical, funny/goofy, helpful and hugely talented as her. Thanks also go to my lovely friends Angela and Amber (it was an 'A' sort of shoot) who modeled and did hair and makeup, respectively. The finished result fulfills what I envisioned and I know it wouldn't have been possible without their capable, patient assistance.

Anja and I spent a long time over the past few months sending images back and forth to one another and dreaming up a dark, painterly concept to highlight the moody, mystic, heirloom-y qualities of my jewelry. The primary influence is the Baroque-era oil paintings of Flemish and Danish masters, and right as we shot this we joked that it was just in the nick of time – this style seems to be of the Zeitgeist so if you like it, good news – you're about to see this style everywhere! (Haha, but also not joking.) That said, I am so incredibly happy with the result and I think it stands alone.

I so love old Romantic (as in era, not as in mood, but okay, also in terms of mood sometimes) style stuff and a challenge for me in terms of making and marketing my jewelry is the constant feeling that the design world is mindlessly cheering, "modernism! shapes! geometry! minimalism!" – beautiful stuff, but not my bag. (Maybe it's my background in narrative writing that makes me want my jewelry to be slightly narrative, too.) Anyways, long story short, it was a joy to do something that vibed so nicely with how I always want the world to look in my mind.

Everything about this whole endeavor – the materials and effort that went into the jewelry, the scope of details worked out long in advance for both the line and the look book – really challenged me, but I am very proud of where it has ended up. I am very tired as I write this so I think I'll finish up with a meaningful quote that I came across in the flurried haze of website finessing tonight:

"I just want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares." -Saul Bass